This invention relates generally to vending machines and more particularly to those which utilize a large helical coil to advance items from a storage position within the machine to a chute for discharge to the consumer. U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,178,055, 3,335,907, and 3,601,281 disclose various vending machines of this type. The machines usually have a discharge chute mounted on the front or at the side and are designed to hold a plurality of individual item discharge units. The units each have a tray with a helical coil mounted therein. Items are advanced by rotation of the coil by means of a motor activated by the customer after money is deposited in the machine.
Economy of manufacture dictates that the individual units, and hence the trays, be of identical construction. The consumer, however, demands that a wide range of products be made available to him through vending machines. The size and shape of the packaging for these various products varies from the typical sack for potato chips and the like, to packages of various sizes for cigarettes, and to still other packages for thin or little cigars, mints, lifesavers, gume and other products.
The problem for a manufacturer, therefore, is to provide a standard-sized tray, based quite often on a size necessary for vending cigarette packages, which is readily convertible to handling the smaller mint, gum, or candy bar packages.
While there are various methods for changing the size of the compartments, these earlier devices all result in compartments of fixed size, so that if the operator of the machine wished to change the size on site he needs to disassemble the entire unit and possibly has to take the unit back to his base of operations. It is quite desirable that a method be provided for adjusting the size of the units at the site, so that popular items can be increased in a particular machine even if they happen to differ in size from the items currently vended from the machine.
Among the patents which have attempted to utilize a space of some sort to reduce the size of the compartments are Wirstlin et al U.S. Pat. No. 3,908,858, Wittern U.S. Pat. No. 3,861,561 and Wittern U.S. Pat. No. 3,929,255. However, none of these units is completely adjustable on site and does not achieve all of the objects and advantages of the present invention.
Accordingly, it is a principal object of the present invention to provide a vending machine item discharge unit having adjustable means positioned within a rotatable discharge helix for changing the size of the merchandise holding compartments within the unit. Another object of the present invention is to provide a simple adjustment means which can be utilized to change the size of storage compartments in a helix delivery system and which can be used whether the helix is front driven or rear driven. These and other objects and advantages will become apparent hereinafter.